The twist with buying games directly through Twitch is that part of the cut also goes toward the streamer (as long as the streamer is part of Twitch’s “partner program,” that is). That means Twitch streamers can make a cut of the profits from the sales of whatever game they’re streaming.

AmazonFrench game maker/publisher Ubisoft is one of the first major publishers that’s part of Twitch’s new service.

It also means that the large, loyal audiences that follow Twitch streamers can be directly monetized — Twitch already makes money from those audiences through advertising, as well as through a paid “Pro” service that removes adds and grants other benefits. This enables yet another avenue for Amazon to cash in on the millions of people watching game streams on Twitch.

TwitchStreams of games like ‘League of Legends’ often draw (virtual) crowds of thousands.

When the service launches this spring on Twitch, you won’t be able to buy every game you see being streamed — just those where the game’s developer and/or publisher worked with Twitch to make it happen. There are some notable names among that initial list, such as Ubisoft and Telltale Games, but all the highest-profile game makers are missing: companies like EA, Activision, Sony, and Microsoft are all missing.

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